Non-profit group develops unified emergency plan

A non-profit group has developed a new way to rapidly assist people in emergency situations.

Shell Clark, chair of Mutual Aid Alberta gave a presentation to County of Grande Prairie council recently discussing their Emergency Response Portal. The database has emergency response information that can be distributed to residents, oil and gas companies, service companies and volunteers.

“In an event of an emergency or catastrophic event, there is an opportunity if you have a one source of contact to be able to get a hold of people and make sure that they are safe or that they are notified of what activities are happening,” said Leanne Beaupre, reeve for the County of Grande Prairie.

When disaster strikes, a list will be provided indicating which residents may be in the affected area. Mutual Aid Alberta will be able to phone those residents and tell them to evacuate or find shelter.

Information will be encrypted in case a break in the server occurs. Resident information would not be shared without their consent.

Beaupre said this may create less confusion as people will use one plan instead of multiple ones from gas and oil companies.

“I think each industry has to file an emergency response plan with Alberta Energy Regulators presently now. Our firemen and our enforcement services have those plans on file,” said Beaupre.

Mutual Aid Alberta is hoping the municipality can provide them with resident information.

“There’s are a few things that I think we have to have administration investigate to find out whether or not some of the information we gather, under the Freedom of Information and Protection Act, is specific about how you gather information and what you can use it for,” noted Beaupre.

The portal would be free for the County to use.

Mutual Aid Alberta was founded in 2014 with the goal of putting the health and safety of people first.